Racism, bigotry bad for all

Charley Reese
Commentary

Published in The Orlando Sentinel on October 24, 2000

In these politically correct days, all of us are supposed to refrain from being racist bigots, right? Then how come so many Americans believe that it's OK to be a racist bigot when it comes to Arabs and Muslims?

Ric Keller, running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida's eighth district, which includes Orlando, got carried away recently and said the Palestinians who killed two armed Israeli undercover agents are "lower than pond scum."

Well, I have one question, Mr. Keller. Do you have the guts to stand up in public and say that the Jewish settlers who lynched a Palestinian -- they gouged out his eyes, broke both arms, fractured his skull and set him on fire -- are "lower than pond scum?"

If you don't, you don't deserve the vote of any decent American. You are just another cowardly panderer. None of my Palestinian friends condones the killing of the two Israelis, even though, unlike the Palestinian, the Israelis were armed. But if it's brutality you're against, then you have to be against it no matter which side commits it.

Don Imus, the radio pseudo-iconoclast, referred to Yasser Arafat as a "rag head." Well, Mr. Imus, if you feel free to call Arabs rag heads, do you think that Jews or black people should be called derogatory names? Why do you think that Arabs are exempt from common decency?

Rod Dreher, a New York Post writer, asserted that Israel was the only outpost of Western civilization "in that savage and irrational desert." Well, Mr. Dreher should study history. Most of Western Europe's knowledge of the classical society came from Arabs who preserved the texts of ancient Greeks and Romans.

Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, repeats the old canard that Arabs hate all Jews. Well, once more, consult history. When Jews fled Christian persecution in Europe, where did they go to find sanctuary?

The Islamic countries. Arabs don't hate Jews. Jews, Christians and Muslims have lived together in the same countries for centuries. Arabs are, by the way, also the "seed of Abraham."

The dispute with the Israelis is over territory not religion. No less a man than a leader of Hamas reminded a caller, who asked how Hamas would treat Christians, that Islam teaches that Muslims must treat Christians as they would treat themselves.

Columnist Cal Thomas, who must be a Christian Zionist, warns that Muslims are a threat to Americans. Wake up, Cal, and read something besides Zionist propaganda. Muslims have been part of America since the 1800s, and, so far as I know, we Christians have done the killing in North America.

And, Cal, if you visit an Arab city, your hotel clerk won't have to warn you to stay out of certain neighborhoods. There is far more crime in our cities than in theirs.

Islam has been greatly distorted, and the propaganda campaign seems to be intensifying, probably to divert attention from Israeli brutality.

Needless to say, most Americans are as ignorant of Arab history and culture as they are of their own. In Jerusalem, the keys to Christianity's holy site were entrusted to Muslims.

There is only one point on which I agree with the politically correct types, and that is that racism and bigotry should be condemned. But when you exclude Arabs and Muslims and feel free publicly to insult, stereotype and distort their culture and their religion, you are really telling the world that you are a hypocrite. You are, in fact, a racist bigot and ignorant, to boot.